A substantial number of licensed professionals such as physicians
and lawyers experience addictive behaviors and other behavioral health
crises. The interventions and best practices that are in place to ensure
their care, treatment and recovery are facing growing scrutiny.

Virtually every state jurisdiction offers interventions for
individuals who come forward for help rather than face licensure board
sanctions. Usually, volunteer or not-for-profit entities formed by
concerned licensure boards regulate the programs that help impaired
healthcare professionals and members of bar associations move toward the
safe return to their profession, meeting the public's expectations
that these individuals have been vetted as safe. The trend has been to
keep professionals' treatment, as protected health information, out
of the public eye. Yet there can be both positive and detrimental
effects of this for the public and for the affected individuals.

Before we go on, try to answer the following tough questions about
your perception of impaired licensed professionals:

* What would be your confidence level in an impaired professional
returning to practice and working with your loved one?

* Do you believe an impaired professional can return to higher
levels of professionalism after treatment?

* Do you believe impaired professionals' addiction ought to be
made public in their profiles?

* Is there such a thing as "too much addiction" to be
able to return to the profession?

How we answer these questions can be the proverbial elephant in the
room. The onset of impairment in these valued professionals might
require a "time out" to assess their health and their ability
to meet the standards of their profession. When the need for lengthy
interventions arises, adjudications result in the affected professional
receiving proper guidance toward treatment and recovery.

Usually the public will never know if, and to what degree, the
professional has been affected by impairment and recovery. Recognition
of a professional's impairment is not made public unless
significant board action on his/her license has occurred.

The public's trust also can be compromised by a lack of
consistency among states' professional boards as to what
constitutes best practices for the identification, treatment and
monitoring of professionals' health issues, as well as treatment
providers' willingness to agree with measurable treatment
expectations. Provisions governing interventions, the treatment plan,
length of treatment, frequency of screening for relapse, and conditions
requiring extended treatment are not uniform.

Varying requirements for post-treatment monitoring of recovering
professionals constitute one major source of concern. Usually,
participants must call or check in online daily to see if they have been
chosen to undergo a drug screen before 5 p.m. that day. While the number
of tests varies by jurisdiction and program, we know that the average
recovering nurse in the United States spends $10,000 a year meeting the
drug screen requirement. There is something fundamentally wrong with a
nurse being charged an average of $70 for the test with a $20 draw fee,
especially when a test to run a 12-panel urine drug screen costs a lab
around $8 to process. Nurses simply can't afford those prices.
Oftentimes they simply leave the profession rather than bear these
costs.

Something must happen soon to standardize practices, profession by
profession. Given ongoing moves in Congress and the professional
community to encourage licensure portability from state to state in the
healthcare and legal professions, it is in the best interest of
healthcare boards and state bar associations to advocate consistent
national standards for addiction identification, treatment and disease
management.

Association efforts

Enter the newly formed American Academy of Professionals Health
Programs (AAPHP) as a facilitator of collaboration between state
jurisdictional entities and those providing the treatment. AAPHP came
into existence Jan. 1, 2016, as an initiative to seek collaboration
between healthcare recovery programs and lawyer assistance programs. It
seeks to gain those entities' support in developing standards
toward national best practices and an outcomes-focused approach to
disease management for licensed professionals. Eventually, other
scrutinized professionals will be included as the initiative matures.

Among the areas it is researching, AAPHP is examining practices of
chronic pain management for affected healthcare professionals. It also
has had discussions with the Department of Defense for returning
military healthcare professionals whose addictions developed while the
individuals were deployed in combat situations. Military adjudication of
addictions, often considered as a disciplinary or even criminal matter,
is radically different from civilian perception of addiction as disease
management. AAPHP seeks to address the disparagement of these licensed
professionals returning stateside to become reaccredited with healthcare
boards, insurance payers and credentialing entities.

AAPHP is in the process of surveying jurisdictional requirements
for professional health programs, while at the same time seeking to
contact each state's program to understand their expectations for
treatment at various levels of care. The association is forming a
professional standards committee and credentialing committee of esteemed
academic, regulatory and treatment professionals who have demonstrated a
commitment to best practices through years of service with state
recovery programs.

Another major challenge involves the lack of beds within treatment
centers to begin the recovery process for newly affected professionals.
AAPHP has identified growth opportunities for treatment centers and
professionals to become accredited in treating professionals with
addictions. AAPHP has a strategic alliance with SyMedica, a CEU provider
credentialed by the Florida Division of Medical Quality Assurance, which
has a growing library of online and live training programs to assist
treatment center staff and independent licensed professionals who treat
impaired professionals. Treating professionals also have the opportunity
for accreditation as diplomate or clinical members of AAPHP as well,
offering professional health programs an added layer of provider
accountability.

AAPHP is planning its inaugural Congress of state recovery program
professionals, treatment center professionals and licensed recovery
professionals for the first quarter of 2017.

Seeking collaborators

AAPHP is looking for collaboration with an academic program in a
university setting (in a department of public health or medicine) to be
a home for academic research and development of best practices. AAPHP
also needs the expertise of seasoned providers in the area of treating
recovering professionals.

We would be delighted to explore ways to involve your state
recovery program, hospital system or treatment center.

Any profits of AAPHP are designated proportionally to the Caduceus
Recovery Foundation or the Juris Recovery Foundation, both of which are
not-for-profit foundations established to provide treatment assistance
for deserving but financially impoverished impaired professionals.

Florida program earns the first accreditation

The American Academy of Professionals Health Programs (AAPHP) has
announced its first Diplomate Accredited Treatment Program. The Advanced
Recovery Systems program is under the direction of Orlando Recovery
Center medical director Timothy Huckaby, MD, who also serves as
president of the Florida Society of Addiction Medicine.

Advanced Recovery Systems' dedicated and structured
Professionals Program serves both healthcare and legal professionals in
need of treatment at the organization's Orlando inpatient and
outpatient facilities. The treatment organization's Ryan Chu has
been certified by AAPHP as a Professionals Program Admissions
Professional.

Bob Coates, MDiv, LMFT, is Executive Director of the American
Academy of Professionals Flealth Programs (AAPHP). Laura Pulido, MSN,
ARNP-BC, is a practicing Advanced Nurse Practitioner with more than 10
years of experience In developing regulatory-specific pain management
options for licensed professionals. Dlno Eliadis, MBA, provides AAPHP
with day-to-day strategic growth planning and operational oversight.
Information on AAPHP is available by calling (800) 375-1859, or
e-mailing bob@professlonalshealth.net.

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